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The purpose of this book is to present in condensed form most of what is currently known of the grasshoppers (Orthoptera Caelifera) of Costa Rica and Panama. That this goal can be even contemplated by a single author is a sign of how extremely limited our knowledge of the biology of the Tropics truly is. Costa Rica is biologically one of the best known of tropical lands, and grasshoppers are relatively large, conspicuous insects, and rather limited in the number of their species in comparison with many other groups of insects. The fact that nearly half the presently known Costa Rican grasshoppers have been described directly or indirectly as a result of the collecting work of the author and his associates in the past 30 years says more about the richness of the tropical fauna and the paucity of previous systematic work there than of our industry. Of all Costa Rican insects, perhaps only the larger day-flying butterflies are known taxonomically at the depth that temperate-zone biologists assume to be normal and universal, and even they only found their biographer with the publication of Phil DeVries' (1987) standard-setting work.
